Competitive Intelligence

Democrats Hit Boston, Republican Intel Ops Up the Street, Kerry Weaker in Polls

The Democratic National Convention convened last night in Boston and Slate.com's Will Saletan was there to blog the evening's speeches, most notably the "return of the king", Bill Clinton:

I thought Gore's speech was terrific and well-received. But his reception was nothing like Hillary's. Even before she walks onstage, the mere mention of her name by convention emcee Bill Richardson brings the house down. For the first time all night, the roar becomes so loud I have to press my fingers against my ears.

Her speech is soporific, a collage of the usual expensive promises: health insurance for all, more funding for first responders, more benefits for veterans, and, of course, more money for New York City. "I know a thing or two about health care," she adds, and everyone laughs. But this crowd, including Hillary, thinks the joke is just about bad politics. They don't understand that it was bad policymaking, too.

No matter. Hillary knows she'll end with the night's surest applause line, introducing her husband. The place goes nuts as Bill strides forward. You have to see him standing where lesser mortals have stood—in this case at the podium 100 feet from me—to appreciate what an imposing figure he cuts. The frost that has covered his hair since he left office accentuates the effect. In the arena, far more so than on the TV screen, he looks so majestic you almost can't believe the trashy, pointless, inconsequential way in which he disgraced his office.

If you don't like what the Republicans are doing—taking cops off the street, putting tax cuts for the rich before homeland security—"take a look at John Kerry, John Edwards, and the Democrats," Clinton concludes. That's the most effective pitch of the evening, and it's not surprising that Clinton, the only Democrat in 20 years who has proved himself effective as a political strategist, was the one to figure it out. But by now, it's almost 11 p.m. Eastern Time, and Clinton's blistering rush to finish his speech before the networks sign off has failed. A speech that should have started 15 minutes earlier, to let the night's best speaker play out his "take a look" message, has been pushed to the edge of prime time and compressed to a pace difficult to follow. If only they'd given Clinton more minutes at the podium in exchange for fewer pages in his memoir.

The worst loss for the Democrats in this clock mismanagement is their failure to capitalize on Clinton's presidency as a success story. Kerry has been far more eager than Gore ever was to embrace and exploit Clinton's record of peace and prosperity. And Clinton tries to make that point tonight. We tried it the Republicans' way for 12 years, he says. Then we tried it our way for eight years. Then their way for another four. "Our way works better," he says.

The other thing Clinton represents is the intelligence Bush lacks. Bush 41 seemed like he didn't care, so we elected a president who at least seemed like he cared. Clinton seemed like a liar, so we elected a president who at least seemed too straightforward or dumb—call it whatever you want—to lie. Now it's time to elect a president who at least seems smart enough not to screw up a budget, an economy, and a war. "Strength and wisdom are not opposing values," says Clinton softly, and to my amazement, the convention hall erupts. People are standing and clapping. I thought the dig was too subtle—and the lesson too profound—to come across. But in this building, everyone gets it. We'll find out three months from now whether the folks at home agree.

Also in the recaps today, Mickey Kaus blogged out an interesting pillar for winning that Kerry needs to exploit - he's boring:

"Eddie Yost": Will Kerry try to present himself as a dynamic leader who is more appealing than Bush? Why, for heaven's sake? a) Kerry's not a dynamic leader or an appealing personality. b) He doesn't have to beat Bush on positives; he can beat him on negatives (dissatisfaction with the president's performance). The trick, as Dick Morris argues, is for Kerry to keep his own negatives down by presenting a "small target." That means drawing as little attention to himself as possible--becoming a minimally acceptable alternative without offering voters too much to disagree with. Boredom is Kerry's friend. (Here's where his positive vision for America comes in!) Distractions--Clinton's book tour, the Laci trial and Jacko and Kobe--are Kerry's friends too. Above all, Kerry must not try too strenuously to let the American people come to know him better. That could be counterproductive. ... Eddie Yost, whom Kerry named his favorite Boston Red Sock, famously got on base not by trying to smash base hits but by waiting patiently while until the opposing pitcher threw four balls. We now know, from Billy Beane and Michael Lewis, that this strategy may be boring--but it wins ball games.

Then, there are the Republicans in their Boston War Room, which I found most interesting of all:

In case anyone missed the fact that Senator John Kerry was booed at Fenway Park on Sunday night or that Teresa Heinz Kerry told a newspaper reporter to "shove it," a few dozen Republicans made sure these tidbits were not lost in the Democrats' overflow of scripted e-mail messages and the happy television chitchat bubbling up from their convention.

The Bush campaign and the Republican National Committee have temporarily transplanted their "war room" from suburban Virginia to a small bunker just two blocks from the Fleet Center, where the Democrats are expected to nominate Mr. Kerry for president on Thursday night.

John Feehery, who in Washington is a spokesman for the Republican speaker of the House, J. Dennis Hastert, is among those encamped at the bunker here. He managed to obtain a credential that allowed him into the Fleet Center on Monday afternoon and to circulate among news organizations, handing out his memorandum mentioning Mr. Kerry's reception at Fenway and his wife's remark. (Credentials won by the other side are by now a standard feature of war-room tactics; most emanate from lobbyists in Washington who like to play both sides.)

Mr. Feehery is only one soldier in the Republican field operation. Ed Gillespie, chairman of the Republican National Committee, is overseeing about three dozen people, including a rotation of "spinners" like Ralph Reed and Mary Matalin, and top Republican strategists. There is a regional desk focused on battleground states and a nerve center with computers monitoring and cataloging all things Kerry. The effort here is coordinated with scores of surrogate speakers in the battleground states so all are talking from the same page.

"The goal is to get into the stories," Mr. Gillespie said in an interview in his bare-bones bunker office. "We know we're swimming upstream and that our quotes are going to be on the jump page. But we don't want to let charges go unanswered and we don't want to allow them to ditch the senator's record, because we believe it's important in the debate."

It is the Republican view that Mr. Kerry's voting record in the Senate shows him to be a liberal, partial to tax raises and weak on defense and that the convention is trying to conceal that information, hence the new Republican Web site DemsExtremeMakeover.com.

But, the Democrats will be similarly geared up for New York:

This is no ordinary storefront operation. In the "war room," filled with computers and television sets, Republican staffers are monitoring everything that Kerry and his party stalwarts say, looking for anything they can paint as wrong, exaggerated or, to use their favorite term, a flip-flop.

Not that Republicans have a patent on the idea. The Democratic National Committee will be doing the same thing during Bush's convention in New York. "It's to keep them honest -- simple as that," said DNC spokesman Jano Cabrera. "It's rare that the other side breaks through. That will not stop us."

Meanwhile... bad news for Kerry in the polls:

A majority of voters say they know little about John F. Kerry's positions on key issues and want the Democratic presidential candidate to detail specific plans for handling the economy, Iraq and the war on terrorism when he addresses the Democratic National Convention and a nationally televised audience on Thursday, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The survey suggests that the stakes for Kerry and the Democrats as they began their convention in Boston could not be higher. In barely a month, Kerry has lost ground to President Bush on every top voting issue in this year's election.

A growing proportion of voters say Bush and not Kerry is the candidate who most closely shares their values, and four in 10 believe the Democrat is "too liberal." Bush has even narrowed the gap on which candidate better understands their problems, an area in which Kerry has led.

The poll suggests that negative ads by the Bush-Cheney campaign that have been airing since early March, as well as attacks by Republican officials, have been increasingly successful in planting the image of Kerry as an unreliable leader who flip-flops on the issues -- perceptions that Democrats will work hard to reverse at their convention.

Kerry's advisers down played the results of the Post-ABC poll, asserting that the senator from Massachusetts enters the convention stronger than other recent challengers to incumbent presidents. But they agreed that the four-day gathering in Boston represents a critical opportunity for Kerry to flesh out what is still a partial portrait of his candidacy and said that his chance to communicate directly with voters will pay dividends.

Cheryl Utley, 43, of Lowell, Mich., would seem to be exactly the kind of voter Kerry is targeting this week. Utley, a restaurant worker, is an independent living in a battleground state. She is leaning toward Bush even though she has supported Democrats more often than she has Republicans. "I have more of a sense of where he stands on things than Kerry," she said.

Whatever happens, that's about as much Presidential politicking as I can stand for a couple of days, so tomorrow, something entirely different.

- Arik

Posted by Arik Johnson at July 27, 2004 11:03 AM | TrackBack